Portable medical devices having wireless data communication capabilities are becoming increasingly popular, especially for patients that have conditions that must be monitored on a continuous or frequent basis. For example, diabetics are usually required to modify and monitor their daily lifestyle to keep their body in balance, in particular, their blood glucose (BG) levels. Individuals with Type 1 diabetes and some individuals with Type 2 diabetes use insulin to control their BG levels. To do so, diabetics routinely keep strict schedules, including ingesting timely nutritious meals, partaking in exercise, monitoring BG levels daily, and adjusting and administering insulin dosages accordingly. Diabetics may utilize medical devices such as insulin infusion pumps, BG monitors, BG meters, and/or pump controllers to help them manage their diabetes.
Like many electronic devices, portable medical devices are often provided with alarm, alert, and/or reminder features and functions. For example, an insulin infusion pump may sound an alarm when its insulin reservoir needs to be replaced. As another example, BG monitors generate alerts when the patient's BG level goes above or below certain threshold values. Conventional alarm-enabled electronic devices, including some portable medical devices, might generate false alarms from time to time, employ an inappropriate alerting technique (such as a loud siren when the user is sleeping or a vibrating alarm when the device is not being held or carried by the user), or otherwise use only one default alerting scheme. Users typically manage electronic device alarms, alerts, and reminders through configuration menus, preference settings, snooze buttons, etc. Such actions can be inconvenient and time consuming, and sometimes ineffective at reducing annoying or inappropriate alarms.